The Changed One
by TheRustyJellyfish
Summary: In a world of infected, a survivor must make a sacrifice that could cost his life and possibly his humanity. I changed the rating for blood and gore.
1. Blood and concrete

Well, howdy dowdy banana fop filly! Looks like you found my story! This is my first Left4Dead fanfic, so don't be hatin'.

_This is infected talk._

_This is thoughts._

"This is normal talk."

**This is a flashback.**

**Hunter POV**

The Hunter coiled its legs like springs, and took off at intensifying speed through the city. The city had been bare of humans for weeks now, but the Hunter kept going with the hope that there would be more. It landed on the rooftop of a high rise apartment building and sniffed the air. Blood. Blood meant food. It jumped off the roof, ricocheted off a wall, and headed downtown.

**Survivor POV**

I struggled. I kicked my legs and thrashed my arms, but nothing was helping. I tried to heave the chunk of concrete off of me, which was hard considering one of my arms was sprained. I screamed in pain before violently shushing myself. _Shut up, shut up! The infected will hear!_ My mouth wouldn't listen to my brain and kept screaming. I slapped myself across the face and finally quieted down. I'd been trapped here for a day now. I was surprised I hadn't died from my wounds, and that they hadn't gotten infected. I was worried that soon, an infected would come along and start ripping me to pieces and there wouldn't be a single thing I could do about it. But what worried me even more was that I wasn't immune to the infection. That's why I was in this mess in first place.

**I awoke to the sound of loud arguing. "He'll just be another damn zombie if he gets bit!" I heard Coach yell. "He's just 12, Coach! And besides, if we protect him right, he won't be bit, now will he?" I smiled a weak smile. Rochelle always stood up for me. "I don't care what we do as long as we get movin' soon!" Nick said impatiently as he smoothed out his thousand dollar coat. They all looked to Ellis for his verdict. He was busy stuffing himself with guns from the nearby cabinet. He shrugged and said, "Hey, I just wanna shoot some bastards." **

** It had been a day and a half since that argument, and they had decided to let Max stay. He was a good fighter, good with guns, but he noticed the stares he was getting from the others. "What?" Coach pointed and yelled, "TANK!" I turned around… just in time to get smashed by a piece of concrete. One of my legs was pinned, and I couldn't get out. The last thing I saw before I blacked out was the other survivors running away from me.**

I had fallen asleep. When, I didn't know. How, I didn't know. All I did know was that now it was dark and I couldn't see past my face. The electrical grid had gone out days ago. I had a pack of matches in my backpack, if I used those… I grabbed for where my backpack normally would be. With a shudder, I looked and saw it lying about five feet away from me in the dust. I reached for it, but screamed in pain when my arm felt like it had exploded. I decided it was probably for the better I didn't have matches, fire would attract infected anyway. I kept telling myself that over and over, that I would be okay and that it was better that I didn't have fire. But after a few hours, the darkness engulfed me along with my mind. I screamed in frustration, cursing the world for having done this to me. I pounded the ground with my fists as bitter tears streamed down my face. I let out another bloodcurdling scream that could have easily been mistaken for a Hunter. I pounded the cement block that was on me… and loosened a chunk that then fell on my arm.

**Hunter POV**

The Hunter was getting closer to the human. It could smell it. But now there was a new smell with it, one of fresh blood. The Hunter bounded further towards downtown, slicing open lesser infected whenever it could and never stopping. It landed on a car and smashed it in. It was getting near.

**Max POV**

I had fallen asleep again. I kept my eyes shut, clamped them shut even further to hold the hope that I would hear Nick or Ellis's voice telling me to get up, that we still had work to do. But the voice never came. I groaned, and vomited up blood in the process. I was starting to really feel my wounds. I reluctantly took out my handkerchief and began wiping the blood from my mouth. When I was done, I stuck it back in my pocket and finally opened my eyes. I opened them to daylight, the soft tendrils reaching at me through the dim shadows. I began to shiver and started coughing violently. I was dying from my wounds. I wasn't stupid, but the reality of dying was hard to accept. I thought of the other survivors, talking about how they were glad they'd left me behind. _They were planning this all along,_ my dying mind thought, bitter and angry. I stewed like this for a few hours, growing angrier and angrier at their betrayal, and even worse, that I had trusted them.

My vision was fading. I started seeing light where there was dark and dark where there was light. My head swam, and I vomited frequently. My ears rung, hearing sounds that I knew weren't there. At one point I started hallucinating, seeing an infected run up and start tearing into my soft, vulnerable flesh. My screams awoke me from this, and as I caught my breath, it finally dawned on me. I was dying.

A/N: **Well, well, well! Looks like Max has gotten himself into a real pickle, huh? R&R please! I will be releasing the next chapter regardless of whether I get reviews or not, but I like reviews, so REVIEW!**

**Oh, and just so nobody gets confused, Max is the survivor who got pinned under a piece of concrete, and well, the hunter is just a hunter.**

**I don't own Left4Dead or Left4Dead2, or any of their respective characters.**


	2. The Absence of Pain

**A/N: I don't own Left4Dead or Left4Dead2. I thought that would be clear.**

Chapter one recap:

Max is trapped under a piece of concrete in the downtown of an infected city. And to make it worse, he's dying, and it seems a Hunter is stalking him.

Just so you know, most of the flashbacks are in 3rd person.

Max POV

-

The first thing I felt was the pain. Horrible, burning pain, pain that crept up my leg and into my head. It burned my head and seemed to seep out my eyeballs. I would have screamed out but it seemed there was a fist over my mouth preventing me from making any speech. My throat tightened. It was getting harder and harder to get air, my starved lungs breathing quicker and quicker to get oxygen to my heart and brain. I had no energy left. I didn't even vomit anymore; my body knew it had to conserve the energy. So I just sat there in pain, not moving, not speaking, and barely even breathing. My eyes were bloodshot and I was dying of thirst as well as gangrene. I swallowed my parched throat raw and bleeding. So this is what it was like to be dying. I remembered when my grandma died about a year earlier, how I stood at the edge of her bed and imagined how much pain she must be in. Now I knew. I saw a lesser infected scoot over and look at me. It just stared at me for a few heart-stopping seconds before it shuffled away.

_It must think I'm already dead…_ The words rung in my head, bouncing around and around until it hurt. Was I already dead? Something snapped inside of my mind and I let out a scream, a scream of frustration, a scream of hurt and bloodcurling pain. I was only 12, and I had barely experienced a world without pain. All my life I had been battling something, whether it was zombies, an alcoholic father, or a nest of hornets. My mind had never gone to rest, always ready to jump up and fight back. And as I lay there, dying, my mind finally met something it had never known… rest. I let my mind go and lay itself down and my sore muscles relax and began crying. I had never rested in life; in fact, it seemed the only time I would rest would be in death.

**Max stood leaning against the concrete wall, staring at the trees and the sky and the birds that filled it. He looked at his newest bruise, a yellow greenish thing he had gotten after his dad had thrown a brick at him. Max took a deep breath and sunk even further into the wall, waiting for the pain to subside. He heard a door slam shut, and saw his brother Noah walk out of the house. He said nothing, only walked over to Max and sat down beside him. "It's not our fault, you know." He spoke the words with a quiet intensity that made Max listen more than he normally would.** **"Dad, he's got some problems…" Max silently nodded his head in agreement. "Want to go to the forest?" Max's face lit up at this. "Sure!" The forest was filled with oaks, gnarled with age and looking down at them with kindness in their stunted faces. They would spend hours there climbing and making friends with the local squirrels, who chattered at them from nearby branches. Max got up. The forest was the one place Dad couldn't hurt him.**

It had been a long time since then, and I was sure my brother and father were long dead by now. I sunk my head into the ground and finally let go after years of hanging on…

**Third Person POV**

The Hunter was extremely close. A few more leaps and he'd be there. It jumped silently from rooftop to rooftop, suppressing its screeches. It leaped down from a building that was once a movie theater crunching into the ground silently. The Hunter looked around, locating the Human under a huge block of concrete. Obviously a child, its breaths came ragged and shallow as its chest moved up and down slowly. The Hunter was too late. This human was so far gone; it wasn't even good for eating anymore. The Hunter looked closer at the small figure. Its left leg was pinned under a large block of concrete, probably impossible for a human to move but like lifting a feather for the Hunter. The human was going to die, and very soon The Hunter reflected that Infected seemed to heal quicker than Humans. He could save this Human's life if he infected it. But should he?

The Hunter turned away, but for a moment reflected on how there were no other Hunters in the city. The Hunter silently made its decision. The Human wasn't good for eating and would probably just attract lesser infected anyway. The Hunter crawled closer to the dying Human who still hadn't noticed it. The Hunter searched the Human with nimble fingers, looking through pockets and zipping opening the backpack. In a dark corner of the backpack he found what he was looking for: a knife. A pretty long one at that; about nine inches long and serrated. The Hunter pricked itself with the point of the knife and watched as the dark blood dripped out. Swiftly, the Hunter put its bleeding finger over the Human's mouth and watched as one drop fell silently into its mouth. The Human twitched, but nothing more. The Hunter crept away, but kept looking at the Human. It was curious to see what would happen.

**Max POV**

It was strange. I awoke to a new pain… or an absence of one, because I noticed that the concrete block that had pinned me down was now off of me. The same with my right arm. A flicker of hope found its way inside my head. Could the survivors have come back for me? The flicker was quickly doused as I looked around and saw no one there. It was only then that I noticed a new pain… I felt horrible, my legs burning and twitching. I tried to yell, but it came out as a strangled growl. I froze. I had only heard that sound once before, and it had come from a... _HUNTER!_ My mind mixed with reality as I saw a Hunter crouched several feet away from me, watching me with clouded white eyes. I panicked and started thrashing around, but only succeeded in paining my legs more. _"Don't thrash… it will only hurt worse."_ The voice had sounded deep and rusty and I looked around before realizing it had come from the Hunter. I recalled the strangled yelp I had made a minute earlier. Suddenly, my sick mind put it all together, the yelp, the hunter, my legs hurting… _"You did this…"_ I managed to growl the words out to the Hunter before blacking out.

I had fainted, my head hitting the cold hard cement and practically shattering. My legs were now twitching uncontrollably, my mind reeling and going off in dozens of different directions. _That Hunter infected me…_ I thought that nothing could be worse than that. Of course, since I was infected, I probably wasn't going to die anymore. I was wrong. That night when I slept… That night was the FIRST time I died.

**---Switching to third person POV because I can---**

The Hunter sat looking at the Human, cocking its head and trying to get some other view it couldn't get just by looking. The Human was shivering, its legs twitching uncontrollably. It occasionally let out strangled yelps, and sometimes blindly punched the air trying to get at something it couldn't.

**Max POV**

I opened my eyes and blinked. I felt horrible, but without the pain I had experienced my whole life. But I wasn't living anymore. I was dead. I pulled my hood over my head. The sun felt blinding, even though it was barely existent over the dead city. I tried to stand up but stagger a few steps and fell down. I instinctively got on all fours and tried to crawl… which seemed to work a lot better. I looked around, swiveling my head to get a full view of the city. I saw the Hunter, still sitting there, still looking at me. I wondered how long it had been doing that. I growled and crouched into an attacking stance. The Hunter, as if reading my mind, said _"You don't attack a brother."_ I stopped. _Brother?_ The Hunter continued. _"You're not Human anymore."_ This surprisingly came as a shock to me, and I crawled over to a nearby puddle and looked at the reflection. A hooded head with dead red eyes and sharp canines looked back. _"You would have died." _I looked back at the Hunter. _Died?_ Suddenly, it all came back, the Tank, the leg, the immense pain of death. I looked down at my leg. The pant leg was ripped, and revealed a nasty looking scar underneath. I looked back. The Hunter was right. _"Why would you help me? Infected are monsters…" _I stopped, realizing that I was now talking about myself. The Hunter looked at me. I looked back with realization in my eyes.

**Author's note: Review, my peeps, Review! By now you probably have the basic outline of the story, but you'll just have to wait to see what happens next…**

**Want any new characters? Suggest them! I don't think I'll be giving the Hunter a name, so don't even ask for one. I might accept suggestions for more special infected, Smokers, Boomers, Jockeys… **


	3. Inhuman

---_Chapter 3: Inhuman---_

**Author's note: Well, this story has been getting a lot of favorites, so I guess you guys **

**like this! Hopefully there will be many more chapters.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Left4Dead, Left4Dead2, or any of their respective characters.**

**Chapter 2 recap: We got a brief view into Max's past as he learned that a Hunter had infected him.**

**Max POV**

I had an idea of why the Hunter had infected me, but I wasn't about to ask it, it didn't respond well to questions even if it gave an answer. One of the first things I realized when I became infected was that I couldn't remember anything. When I realized I couldn't remember anything… that was the SECOND time I died. I didn't know my name, how old I was, or what I had done before I had been infected. It's like my mind cleared old memories to make room for new ones. But until it was filled, my thoughts would just bounce around forever… I looked at the Hunter. It hadn't left me since I'd been infected. I asked it _"Why don't you leave me? What possible use can I be to you?"_ It only shrugged off my question like one would shrug off the presence of a fruit fly. I sighed, thinking _why do I even ask questions? I never get answers._ The answer to this thought came soon when I learned that the answers came in the form of actions. It was the second day of being infected that the Hunter jumped off a building and behind a dumpster. He motioned for me to follow, so I jumped down, not hurt in the least by the twenty foot fall. Suddenly, he grabbed my arm. _"Listen…" _he growled. I tuned in to the sound, turning my head to where I could hear the best. I suddenly locked on to it; it was a little sound, something you probably wouldn't notice normally. It was quieter than the buzzing of an insect, but I had to go towards it. Urged by an unknown instinct, I pounced towards it. Nothing else mattered; I just leapt from roof to roof towards a target I didn't even know anything about. I jumped down from a three story apartment building silently. I sniffed the air… I smelled FEAR. I pawed around in the boxes of the alleyway, and saw in the dark corner a human. Twenty-something, he reeked of fear and his knowledge of impending doom. Without planning or meaning to, I leapt towards him, a bloodcurling shriek escaping from my throat. I landed on him with a sickening thud and started tearing him apart. My claws ripped into the hot soft flesh as I heard the screams escape from his mouth. I ripped with my hands, tore out organs and heard the sickening crunch of bones. The man shuddered violently all the while. I could have stopped, I could have fought it. But I didn't. I was now sickened by humans, clouded with their emotions and room for betrayal and hate. I had no problem tearing him apart, feeling the blood on my hands.

**I was finally at the forest. A vast expanse of twelve acres of oaks, my brother and I had explored every inch of it. I threw my bike down and followed Noah into the forest. The trees were real ents, always extending their branches like arms and just begging to be climbed. So I did. I was about thirty feet into the air, balancing on a thick moss covered branch when I saw it. The poor squirrel was mangy and half dead. Its guts were strewn across the branch, blood thick not only on it, but in the air. I stared at it before looking around. No one was watching. Noah was over at the creek yelling something about fish. I looked from inside my mind and saw someone else's hands take out my pocketknife and stab the squirrel in the stomach. I saw someone else's hands rip out its eyeballs with a sickening POP and crush its skull with my foot. I came around, and soon realized that no one had done that but me. In my daze, I slipped off the branch and landed on the rocks below, blacking out even before I hit the ground.**

The memory had come quickly and left just as fast, like lightning. I then realized why the Hunter had done this to me. I acted like a Hunter even before I was one.

**Rochelle POV**

It had been five days since we left Max under the piece of concrete with the Tank. Coach had been telling me that he was already dead, that we shouldn't go back for him. But I was worried. Max was hardy, and would do anything to survive. I hadn't wanted to leave him behind. We had run for twenty minutes away from the Tank to a nearby Safe House. We all piled in and slammed the barricaded door behind us. Nick and Ellis slumped down into the nearby chairs catching their breath. Coach was about to walk into the nearby room to get a medkit when I grabbed his shoulder and forcefully turned him around. "We can't leave him!" I had shouted. "Rochelle, we're not going back for some kid who's probably already dead!" Coach yelled directly at me. I looked at Nick and Ellis for support. They only shifted uncomfortably and went back to cleaning their guns. "So neither of you believe me?" I looked at Nick, then Ellis with pleading eyes. Nick looked up and spoke quietly but seriously. "Rochelle… I know you cared for him, but did you see what happened back there? He was crushed, Rochelle. Crushed under that piece of concrete. Coach must be right, even if we did go back, we'd just be looking for a dead body." I looked away, me eyes welling up with tears not with the doubt of my teammates but with the knowledge that he was probably right.

**Max POV**

The days passed although they seemed like minutes. I let my humanity slip from me, my vocal chords growing tough and my mind growing fiercer. I let the old memories slip away and be replaced by new ones, ones of me hunting and tearing things apart. God, I loved tearing things apart. Hearing their screams, watching the blood spray from them. I feared nothing, and began associating less and less with humans. I sometimes stopped and wondered what my brother would think. I'd then realize I didn't care.

**Author's note: It was interesting writing this, imagining what it would be like to have your humanity unroll from you slowly but surely. Seems like Max is less and less human, hmmm? And as for the survivors, I doubt Max will be forgetting them anytime soon… But stay tuned, because soon you'll find out Noah's fate.**


	4. Noah Part 1

_ --Chapter 4: Noah—_

**Author's note: If you have no idea who Noah is, I suggest you go back and re-read this story from chapter 1. **

**Chapter 3 recap: Max began to lose his humanity as the infection took over his body. **

**Noah's POV**

_Why me?_ I fired another round into the zombie's head with my shotgun. _Seriously, why me? _ I heard the thump of the nearby feet of a horde, and grabbed the banister to run upstairs. _As if an abusive father wasn't enough, as if a cancerous tumor in my throat wasn't enough, no, life had to throw at me… _I reached the top of the stairs and slammed the door shut behind me. _ A zombie invasion._

I slumped down behind the door to catch my breath as I heard the zombie's fists pound to no avail at the iron door. I coughed violently and fumbled for my water canteen. I held it up to the light and looked inside. Only a few drops left. I greedily poured them down my throat. I looked around the dimly lit safe house CEDA has made after the infection hit. I had laughed at the time. They were saying not to panic, that it was only a common sickness long forgotten, and at the same time they were handing out guns and setting up safe houses. Really, did the government think we were that stupid?

I stumbled across the room and looked at the clock. The glowing red hands read four in the morning. _I guess I get to go to sleep early tonight_ I thought with a chuckle. I barely had time to shut my eyes before my head hit the dirty pillow and I fell asleep.

_That night, I dreamed. I dreamed that I was walking through the streets of the city, looking at the long dead buildings and the smashed cars. I stepped over a dead body and continued on. I wasn't scared; I was more interested than anything else. I glanced up, and saw that the sky was a dirty grey. I saw a flash of black in the corner of my eye, and whirled around to face it. But it was gone, the only thing moving there a magazine page swirling in the wind. I turned back around and took a few steps forward, never letting my guard down. I knew I had seen something. It happened again, this time much closer and in front of me. I began to panic, I had no weapon. What if this thing was hostile? I didn't have much time to ponder this, because it flashed up in front of me and wrestled me to the ground. I tried to scream, but it had an iron grip on my mouth. I looked up and saw a hooded figure in a black sweatshirt. I focused on the face though, dead and gray and red eyed. I looked into those eyes and I saw the forest, I saw us sitting together by the brick wall, I saw… my brother. "Max?" I managed to squeak the word out. He put a finger to my lip to shush me. "It will soon be your time too." He jumped off and pounced away towards an unknown place. "Max!" I tried to run after him, but my legs wouldn't work, and I watched helplessly as he bounded away farther and farther. I screamed out in frustration, and watched as the earth buckled and the ground beneath me turned red, as windows shattered and arms came up from the fissures in the earth and grabbed on to my legs trying to pull me down…_

I awoke with a start, my itchy trigger finger nearly firing my gun. I looked around before realizing where I was. I slightly relaxed and looked at the clock. It said in red computerized letters 10:00 A.M. I jumped up, _I slept too late. _ I grabbed a water bottle in the room as well as a handful of shells and a can of corn. I shuddered. _ I hate corn, who's the idiot who stockpiled this place anyway?_ I kicked open the door while looking at the map. I had to travel five miles east to the city before I could get to an evacuation site. I pumped my shotgun as I sprinted down the stairs and out the double doors into the sun, now high in the sky. I saw a few rotted heads spin around at me and hiss, but I gave them something to chew on keep them quiet- my bullets. I sprinted out of the old mansion and towards the freeway. Speed was key in escaping. It was a simple game of stamina to get away from the undead, as they never needed to sleep, never needed water, never needed to stop running. In fact, it seemed the only thing they needed was to hurt me.

I ran out of the neighborhood and on to a main road. It had obviously been a fair or something before the infection hit, stands labeled 'cotton candy' and 'face painting' still visible. The place seemed empty of infected but that one guy standing far away… I squinted and put my binoculars to my eye. What I saw was the only thing that scared me. I had been beaten half to death by my own father, I had fallen fifty feet and lived, I had undergone four treatments of chemotherapy, and nothing scared me anymore. Except this thing, a voice in the back of my head said. I was never very often scared, but now I was wide eyed, knees buckling, wetting my pants scared. And the cause was a mime. It was a simple infected, its eyes long rotted away and its mouth open in a frozen scream. Through its white face paint and striped clothes, there was only an infection. It was just another zombie. Yet my mouth felt dry, my arms as heavy as lead. The only thing that had scared me… I did a few brain calisthenics when the mime sniffed the air, looked in my direction, and growled. I wanted Max to be here, I wanted to grab on to his arm and ask him to tell that mime to go away. But he wasn't here. The zombie was closing the distance fast, flailing its limbs in an awkward running stance. One second it was so close I could feel its breath, and another it was gone. I blinked, and realized that a slimy tongue had closed around its waist and dragged it away to a popcorn kiosk. I heard some sickening crunching sounds and for a few precious moments thought that that Smoker may have just helped me. But as it poked its head out, one thing was clear: it only wanted me as prey.

This Smoker would not be giving up easily; that much was clear. I had been running and shooting at it for the past twenty minutes, yet it only seemed to get faster and angrier. I looked behind my shoulder and saw the Smoker in steady pursuit, its tumor like flesh jiggling as it ran. I picked up the pace, and saw on a big tan building a heating duct. A small one, one that I could barely squeeze through, but it would work. I dove for it, slamming the grate shut just as the tongue slammed against it.

This was not good. This was definitely not good. The Smoker had somehow broken the grate with its tongue- just clear snapped it off WITH ITS TONGUE. I scrambled madly on all fours through the heating duct system. I heard the clanging of metal behind me and knew it was getting closer. I was giving up all hope when I heard a familiar _whoosh _and saw a big fan. It was the only way out, a huge industrial size fan at the end of the grate. I studied it and found that the only possible way to escape would be to squeeze through the bottom left corner where the blades never touched. I took a deep breath. The clanging was getting louder. I looked at the blades, swinging in the sunlight. I heard the whooshing as I jumped through and- got splattered by blood. For one hugely desperate moment I thought that maybe I had gotten splattered by my own blood, that the blades had perforated me like hamburger meat. But I looked up from the ledge I was sitting on and saw the Smoker's face, twisted in one last grimace, looking straight at me. It was slowly dripping dark blood from its mouth, dead at last. _Take that,_ I thought. I swung my pack over my shoulder and headed down the building.

**Author's note: This was only part 1 of the Noah series. We'll be seeing more of him soon, don't worry… **


	5. What goes around

_--Chapter 5: What goes around comes back around --_

**Author's note: I don't own Left4Dead, Left4Dead2, or any of their respective characters. Come to think of it, the only reason I write these disclaimers is because I'm afraid Valve will sue my butt into space if I don't. I'm scared.**

**Chapter 4 recap: Noah has been fighting off the zombie horde, but his goal remains the same… the city.**

**Max's POV**

We were on the move. We had been since shortly after I ripped apart that survivor. But that was far away now, disappearing along with my memories. _"Why did we leave?" _I asked. _"No more food," _was his reply. I hadn't really wanted to face that fact, but it was true. There were no more animals, they had all long since left, and hardly any more canned food, the survivors had taken them all. Even water was becoming scarce, any little bottle worth fighting over. I inwardly sighed. I knew where we were going. We would go five miles west through the countryside before we got to the next town. Hopefully that one would be less populated.

I pounced on to the roof of a building where I could hear better. There was definitely something near… I sniffed the air. Survivors were here. I crawled my way through the underbrush, pushed a branch aside and looked out. They were speaking in a language almost forgotten to me; I was picking out every third word. "…The bullets…zombies….C'mon, Coach." My eyes went wide. An alarm bell went off in my head. _Coach? Coach?! _ I remembered now. I knew these people. These were the people who had betrayed me; who had left me to die, bleeding under a piece of concrete. Without any kind of warning and with ferocity I hadn't seen even in myself, I jumped on a random survivor. I was so angry, if it weren't for them, I could be alive! I tore at him with my claws, feeling nylon give way to flesh. "Hunter! Get it off me!" He yelled. I heard a shot fired and felt my arm bleed and burn. This was my cue to leave. As I pounced away, I looked into one of the survivor's eyes… _Who was that? Rochelle_. I remember now. I leapt away into the shadows.

--------

**Rochelle POV**

That was Max. It had to be. I had looked into its face and I had seen him. Nick walked up to me and gave me a shot of adrenaline. He looked at me for a long time, then said, "You okay?" "That was Max." I muttered weakly. "That was Max." I said it louder this time. "THAT WAS MAX! THAT WAS MAX!" I was getting frantic now. "You all need to listen to me!" The rest of the team looked at me like I had just grown another head. Coach looked at me with the same expression. "Rochelle, maybe you should sit down." "Guys, I'm not kidding! That was Max! And he's back to get US!" I put emphasis on the word 'us' as I wagged my arm around. Coach grabbed my sleeve. "Rochelle, that thing you saw was a hunter. It was an infected, nothing more than a zombie. I suggest you get over this 'Max' thing because apparently it's starting to mess with your head." I nodded feebly.

If they didn't believe me now, they'd believe me later, because I was sure he'd come back. And it was pretty apparent that he wasn't too happy about us leaving him behind.

----

**Max POV**

I knew them. I knew that I had to kill them, too. I'd kill them all like they killed me. I would sneak up on them and pounce and rip each of them apart- but now I'm thinking too much about it. The Hunter tapped my shoulder and I turned around. He dropped several cans of food on the ground in front of me. _"Where'd you get those?" _I asked. He pointed towards the survivors, who were now yelling at each other apparently about missing food. I grinned.

We had been tracking the survivors. Apparently they were headed the same way as us, so it would be easy to track them. What was infuriating about it though was that the survivors could all only go about half a mile a day as they were all hurt badly. I wanted to pounce them in their weakened state, but every time I tried to The Hunter would put a hand on my shoulder and tell me not to. I asked him why he didn't let me.

"_Because they will eventually destroy themselves,"_ He said with an evil smile. This was starting to annoy me. He always talked in riddles; sometimes I just wanted answers. But I had learned before; the answers always came as actions.

---

**Nick POV**

Rochelle had gone insane. I had spent half my life in cheap motels, casinos, and bars, and I had seen some pretty insane people. So I was sure of it.

The chances that Max had even lived long enough to get infected were slim. I smoothed my once white coat and sighed. The kid had bothered me anyway. He never said anything, only looked off in the distance to a target that wasn't there. That was a Hunter, plain and simple, a Hunter that we had to kill. And we would kill him; no, I would. I would kill that Hunter, because if it was Max, I wanted the satisfaction of killing him.

I blasted the head of a zombie with my sniper rifle. This was getting irritating. We had run into a horde every two minutes, and to make it worse, we were running out of ammo. I tossed a Molotov at a Charger, who just continued to charge. It ran into Ellis and after stumbling for a second, grabbed him with its big arm and slammed him on the ground.

**Lift**

"Help! Flaming Charger's got me!"

**SLAM!**

"Get it off!"

**SLAM!**

I ran up and rammed my shoulder into it. For something that weighs a half ton, they sure stumble easily. I emptied my rifle into its head as it was trying to get up. I grinned. That was what I would do to Max.

**Author's note: Sorry if I made Nick out to be some sort of psychopath, but Max needed an arch-enemy. I apologize if this chapter didn't really ever get going; my mind was on writing the second part of Noah. Anyway, read, review, sneeze into a banana, take a shower, shampoo your hair and stay tuned!**


	6. Noah part 2

**Author's note: Well, here it is! Will we finally get to see what happened to Noah? It's really important that in this chapter you know that **_italics are dreams._

**Noah part 1 recap: Noah has been fighting his way through the zombies, but his goal remains the same… the city. Oh, and I know I said five miles were between the city and Noah, but I'm changing to fifteen because five is too short.**

**Another Author's note: I don't own Left4Dead of Left4Dead2, either. Is there a reason that anyone would think I do?**

_~Chapter 6- Noah part 2~_

I hit the gas as hard as I could. This was insane; I didn't know how to drive. Yet I mowed through the zombies as I tried to head down the highway to the city. My knuckles were gripped to white on the leather of the steering wheel and it seemed like my foot was glued to the gas pedal. I heard only the roar of the engine as I sped along the road. _Why am I doing this?_ That was the last thing I thought before I hit the tree.

_Where am I? _ My vision was fading in and out, but I could distinctly see blurry figures milling around. _My head hurts… _I shifted my head and saw the steaming wreckage of a car beside me. _I remember now… I don't have a license… _I began… to …drift….off…..

_ I was standing on a grassy hill, surrounded by trees and the blue sky above me. I looked down and saw the burning wreckage of the city as hell swallowed it up. I hummed a lively tune and sat down, swinging my legs. "So what do you think?" I looked over and saw the source of the voice. Max was crouching beside me. I looked back. "Not much, really. That city is probably getting what it deserved." "Is that really what you think?" He replied. I spoke without looking back. "Yes. By the way, what do you mean by it will be my turn soon?" He looked at me and I looked at him back. "It's a secret. You'll find out soon enough." "Oh." I looked back, trying to hide my disappointment. My brother and I always respected each other's secrets. "Are you real, Max?" The question was out of the blue, yet Max didn't seem fazed by it. Then again, nothing fazed Max. "What do you mean?" I would think that would be obvious to him. "Are you just a figment of my imagination, created so I would feel better in an apocalypse?" At this, Max looked up at the sky, as if looking for something far away. "Maybe." I began to get angry. He was my only brother, why didn't he tell me? "Maybe?! You just say maybe? Why won't you tell me?!" At this, he only shook his head sadly. "Well, I would tell you, but right now you have to go." "What? What do you mean? I'm right here!" He gave me a sad look and waved goodbye as the world flashed white and the sun was blotted out by darkness. "Max! Don't go! Max! MAAAAAX!" _

I awoke coughing and gasping, trying to get fresh air as if I had been drowning. I shifted my head and saw the cool of night covering the car wreckage like a blanket. I thought back to the crash, to the dreams, to it all… and then snapped back to reality, realizing I had to keep moving. I shifted my legs and found I could still use them. _Okay. That's good._ I got up slowly and heard a low growling noise.

I froze. _It's a Hunter._ I probed the darkness with my eyes and saw a silhouette of crouched figure only feet away from me. _Oh, crap! What do I do? What do I do? If I move, it'll pounce. If I don't move, it'll pounce. Oh crap, oh crap! _My mind worked furiously under the pressure of about to be pounced on by a zombie. I shifted my foot, and my heart stopped as I heard a little pebble go bouncing away from me. That was all the Hunter needed. I heard it pounce before I felt the rush of air, its bloodcurling shriek entering through my head and coursing down my spine. I felt something heavy knock into me, and I was on the ground. I felt its claws come down on me in a kind of half punch, half tear motion. I felt my life ebbing away from me, my arms providing no protection whatsoever from the monster. I saw blood on the dusty ground… my blood.

I looked around as best I could while I was being torn at by it. I reached out with my left arm to a jagged piece of metal. _Almost there… _ The Hunter was still tearing at me, its shrieks attracting other nearby zombies. I felt the cold of the metal and grabbed it with my hand, wasting no time in whipping it up to the Hunter's head. I felt a weight come off my chest as it stumbled off of me as I struggled to get up. In the darkness, I saw it crouching again, getting ready to pounce… _I can't let it do that._ I was sure that if it pounced me again, I would die. What I did next was crazy; insane even. I put my head forward, ran towards the hunter, and head butted it. It stumbled back further while I fumbled for my knife. I felt its familiar shape in my hand and swiped out, lashing through the Hunter's thin rotten shirt and getting splattered with blood. The Hunter fell to the ground and gave me one last look filled with venom; then lay still. I grinned victoriously, knowing I had won. I looked at the blood on my hands; now the Hunter's blood. I sheathed my knife, accidentally pricking my index finger in the process. It didn't matter, though. I was going straight to the nearest safe house.

I opened the door to the wooden barn, feeling the scent of hay mingle with the emptiness of the large room. I strode in like I owned the place. It wasn't a safe house, but it would have to do. I plopped down on a large pile of hay and almost instantly fell asleep.

I awoke shivering and feeling the cold of night. My clothes were of no use, I might as well have been naked in a blizzard. I felt a burning in the back of my throat, and with a hot acidic belch, felt my previous meal vomit back up through me. I couldn't be sick. I couldn't afford to be now. _But what if I had the Green Flu?_ I pushed that thought out of my mind; it was likely I just had a cold caused by the bacteria in the hay. I kept telling myself that, kept telling myself. But the thought wouldn't leave my head, and if I had been in my right mind I would have known that it was a possibility to have the Green Flu.

Suddenly, through the periods of vomit and shivering, my legs started to twitch. And not a little either, my legs were uncontrollably shaking this way and that. It was odd, my legs felt worse than they ever had, yet I felt like if I wanted to, I could leap a building in a single bound. I tried to say my name, but all I heard was "My nagm ik Haon." _That's stupid, say it right! _I tried again, and again, and again, but it all sounded the same. I started to panic. Because at that moment, I realized it was very possible I was infected.

I awoke from a deep sleep I didn't even know I had fallen into. I shook the grogginess from my head and saw thin slits of light coming through the cracks in the roof. They were like little laser beams, burning my eyes. I fumbled through my backpack and pulled out a grey hooded sweatshirt. I pulled it on over my head and pulled the hood on, grateful for the protection. I looked down at my hands. I was shocked to see they had mutated into some kind of claw. There were five joints on each finger to the three I used to have. Then, the truth hit me like a tidal wave. I was a Hunter. It all started coming together, the prick on my finger, the Hunter's blood getting into it, it must have infected me. I panicked and felt my mind burst into flames with this new reality.

Maybe it wasn't all bad. I clearly still had some of my memories, which was apparent. What was disturbing was my want to kill, No, my NEED to kill. I felt like my claws were beckoning me towards something, wanting me to rip it apart. I crawled out of the barn and into the early morning sunlight. There was a thick mist around, disturbed only by the rays of sunlight. I coiled my legs and almost instinctively, jumped on to the roof of the nearby house. But while I was standing there, the mist wrapping around me, I remembered Max. Was he dead? Was he infected? Was he a Survivor? I had to know. I was going to find Max. I looked towards the east where I knew there was a nearby town. I would find him.


End file.
